Friday, January 14, 2011

Paint Chip Mosaic Wall Hanging

I had been collecting some paint chips for some ideas around the house and for some craft projects I had seen online.

Now that I have an office with large white empty walls I wanted to do something (preferably cheap) to make the walls more "homey". I bought a 22 x 28 inch canvas and some espresso acrylic paint (spent $10 for both of them).

I painted the canvas brown (took two coats) and cut the paint chips into 3" squares. When the paint dried, I arranged the squares on the canvas, spreading the colors. I even cut some of the squares in half and scattered them around the canvas.

So next I decided to mod podge the squares down. This is the part that didn't work out! The corners on each one of those 63 squares curled up, that is a total of 252 corners curling up and smiling (or maybe even laughing) at me. So plan B commenced with me taking off the squares that I could and wiping off the mod podge and then drying them off. I then wiped off the canvas and actually had to repaint that baby because in my wiping, I took off some of the paint!

So then I taped those pieces together on the back side, that is a total of 69 pieces that I taped together.

And next I used the extra strong adhesive spray that I had on hand...that worked perfectly and the edges stayed down this time!

By this point I am really liking the looks of this project.

But I wasn't done yet. I combined a few drops of the espresso paint with some mod podge to seal the art!

Here it is all wet with me waiting anxiously for it to dry. I was still afraid that the edges were going to curl up!

Still very wet, having some second thoughts about the tinting...

The edges are staying down...

Here is the finished product! I may add another coat of tinted mod podge to even out the antiquing look...I think it might look too streaky.

But for now, this is the finished product! I plan to hang it in my new office at work...I have three empty white walls to look at in there now, so am excited about getting at least one thing on the wall.

What a great idea to fill a large wall space. Thanks for sharing your bloopers too. Here in blogland we learn so much from each other. I never know what to expect when I try a project for the first time. It looks fantastic.

So pretty! And it's funny that you decided to make this and post it last weekend. That's when I was working on a geometric painting (http://educatorssoliloquy.blogspot.com/2011/01/artists-date-week-two-geometric.html) and thought "I wonder if I can do something with paint chips?" and decided that I would experiment with that this next weekend. Now you've further inspired me!

Wow, love this!! I would have NEVER thought to make something like this, but I'm pretty sure I can't live without one now. :) I'm featuring this for Whimsical Wednesday at http://rosyredbuttons.blogspot.com tomorrow!

wow, that is just to cute and SMART! I have so many chips sitting around, now I know what to do with them!following now:)Hopped over from the Sew Much Ado Party!http://accomplishingmotherhood.blogspot.com

Wow! By far and away the best project I've seen with paint chips. I would definitely have that fabulous piece of art hanging in my home! I love it! Good call on the antiqued tint. Thank you so much for sharing your project at "A Little Birdie Told Me..." at Rook No. 17!